• Iron ore hauling truck in Keonjhar forest, Orissa State, India.
    © 2008 Redux Pictures
    India: Mining Industry Out of Control

    India’s government has failed to enforce key human rights and environmental safeguards in the country’s mining industry. Deep-rooted shortcomings in the design and implementation of key policies have effectively left mine operators to supervise themselves. This has fueled pervasive lawlessness in India’s scandal-ridden mining industry and threatens serious harm to mining-affected communities. Human Rights Watch documented allegations that irresponsible mining operations have damaged the health, water, environment, and livelihoods of these communities.

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Extractive Industries

  • Equatorial Guinea: Cease Politically Motivated Arrests
    Dec 6, 2012
    The most recent arbitrary detention of a leading opposition politician in Equatorial Guinea on December 4, 2012, raises concerns about human rights conditions in the lead-up to legislative elections in the first half of 2013. Since November 2011, the government has detained at least four high-profile members of the country’s beleaguered political opposition.
  • Burma: Investigate Violent Crackdown on Mine Protesters
    Dec 1, 2012

    The government of Burma should promptly and impartially investigate alleged excessive force by local authorities against peaceful anti-copper mine protesters.

  • UN Human Rights Council: HRW's Submission for Canada's Universal Periodic Review
    Oct 10, 2012
    This submission, drawn from recent Human Rights Watch research, focuses on four areas of concern regarding Canada’s human rights record: violence against indigenous women and girls, counterterrorism, abuses related to the extractives industry, and the use of cluster munitions. It also examines Canada’s adherence to commitments made in response to its first Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in 2009.
  • Joint Comment on the Reporting Requirements on Responsible Investment in Burma
    Oct 3, 2012
    The undersigned United States and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are pleased to submit a public comment regarding the “Reporting Requirements on Responsible Investment in Burma.” Many of our organizations have expressed concerns about the scope and timing of the US government decision to permit new investment in Burma and argued for stronger requirements to be imposed on American companies in view of serious, ongoing human rights and corruption concerns. We nevertheless support the reporting requirements as a valuable–if incomplete and imperfect–means to help advance human rights and political reform, consistent with the US government’s longstanding foreign policy priorities in Burma.
  • UN Human Rights Council: Adoption of the Outcome of the Philippines' UPR
    Sep 19, 2012
    Human Rights Watch welcomes the adoption of the outcome of the Universal Periodic Review of the Philippines, which reflects recommendations that could enhance human rights education, labor and migrant workers’ rights, and women’s rights, among others. Human Rights Watch regrets, however, that the Philippine government’s expressed commitment to eliminate extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearance by members of the state security forces - as reflected in the first UPR - has not resulted in the successful prosecution of perpetrators.
  • Kazakhstan: Abusive Response to Oil Worker Strikes
    Sep 9, 2012
    Repressive laws and abusive practices by the government and some oil companies violate the labor rights of thousands of workers employed in Kazakhstan’s booming petroleum sector.
  • Joint Letter to Invitees of the IX Sullivan Summit in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
    Aug 9, 2012
    We understand that you have been invited by the Leon H. Sullivan Foundation (Sullivan Foundation) to participate in its IX Sullivan Summit, which is scheduled to take place in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, from August 20-24, in collaboration with President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. The selection of President Obiang as the host of the upcoming summit is controversial, particularly given the Sullivan Foundation’s mission of empowering underprivileged people and the event’s intended focus on economic and social development in Africa.
  • Burma: US Backtracks on ‘Responsible Investment’ Pledge
    Jul 11, 2012

    The new United States government policy allowing business activity in Burma’s controversial oil sector with reporting requirements will not adequately prevent new investments from fueling abuses and undermining reform.

  • Angola: IMF Should Insist on Audit
    Jul 11, 2012

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) should insist that Angola’s government explain how it spent more than US$41.8 billion in unaccounted oil revenues from 2007 to 2011, Human Rights Watch, Open Society Initiative of Southern Africa (OSISA)-Angola and the Revenue Watch Institute said in a letter to the IMF released today. The IMF’s Executive Board is scheduled to meet on July 11, 2012, in Washington, DC, to discuss Angola as part of an annual review of each of its member countries. 

  • Mercury Treaty: Ban Mercury Use by Child Gold Miners
    Jun 24, 2012
    Negotiations for an international treaty to limit the use of mercury should seek to protect the health rights of artisanal gold mining communities
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